1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to techniques for the treatment of signals organized in pixels (picture elements), and has been developed with particular attention paid to its possible application to processing of video signals implemented by resorting to multiple-description (MD) techniques.
Reference to this particular field of application should not, however, be interpreted as in any way limiting the scope of the invention.
2. Description of the Related Art
The techniques based upon multiple description form the subject of an extensive scientific literature, as witnessed, for example, by the following studies:    P. C. Cosman, R. M. Gray, M. Vetterli, “Vector Quantization of Image Subbands: a Survey”, September 1995;    Robert Swann, “MPEG-2 Video Coding over Noisy Channels”, Signal Processing and Communication Lab, University of Cambridge, March 1998;    Robert M. Gray “Quantization”, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 44, No. 6, October 1998, pp. 2325-2383;    Vivek K. Goyal, “Beyond Traditional Transform Coding”, University of California, Berkeley, Fall 1998;    Jelena Kova{hacek over (c)}ević, Vivek K. Goyal, “Multiple Descriptions—Source-Channel Coding Methods for Communications”, Bell Labs, Innovation for Lucent Technologies, 1998;    Jelena Kova{hacek over (c)}ević, Vivek K. Goyal, Ramon Arean, Martin Vetterli, “Multiple Description Transform Coding of Images”, Proceedings of IEEE Conf. on Image Proc., Chicago, October 1998;    Sergio Daniel Servetto, “Compression and Reliable Transmission of Digital Image and Video Signals”, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1999;    Benjamin W. Wah, Xiao Su, Dong Lin, “A survey of error-concealment schemes for real-time audio and video transmission over internet”, Proceedings of IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia Software Engineering, December 2000;    John Apostolopoulos, Susie Wee, “Unbalanced Multiple Description Video Communication using Path Diversity”, IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), Thessaloniki, Greece, October 2001;    John Apostolopoulos, Wai-Tian Tan, Susie Wee, Gregory W. Wornell, “Modeling Path Diversity for Multiple Description Video Communication”, ICASSP, May 2002;    John Apostolopoulos, Tina Wong, Wai-Tian Tan, Susie Wee, “On Multiple Description Streaming with Content Delivery Networks”, HP Labs, Palo Alto, February 2002, pp. 1 to 10;    John Apostolopoulos, Wai-Tian Tan, Susie J. Wee, “Video Streaming: Concepts, Algorithms and Systems”, HP Labs, Palo Alto, September 2002;    Rohit Puri, Kang-Won Lee, Kannan Ramchandran, and Vaduvur Bharghavan, “Forward Error Correction (FEC) Codes Based Multiple Description Coding for Internet Video Streaming and Multicast” Signal Processing: Image Communication, Vol. 16, No. 8, pp. 745-762, May 2001;    Rohit Puri and Kannan Ramchandran, “Multiple Description Source Coding Through Forward Error Correction Codes”, in the Proceedings of the 33rd Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers, Pacific Grove, Calif., October 1999; and    Rohit Puri, Kang-Won Lee, Kannan Ramchandran and Vaduvur Bharghavan, “Application of FEC based Multiple Description Coding to Internet Video Streaming and Multicast”, Proceedings of the Packet Video 2000 Workshop, Forte Village Resort, Sardinia, Italy, May 2000.
With specific reference to the patent literature, it is possible to cite, as general references on the subject, the documents Nos. WO-A-2004/057876, WO-A-2004/046879, WO-A-2004/047425, WO-A-2004/014083, WO-A-2003/005676, WO-A-2003/005677, WO-A-2003/0005761, WO-A-2004/032517, and WO-A-2004/056121.
Notwithstanding the extensive activities documented, for example, by the literature cited above, there still exists the need for developing solutions that are truly efficient for the treatment of multiple-description signals, in particular for the treatment of video signals at a CPU level.